Life of a Vampire
by Thane
Summary: *on hiatus*Harry Potter, Mage and Vampire, working for Department of Mysteries. Two years after his disappearance he returns to protect Hogwarts.
1. Prologue

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Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Author's Note IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ: The first chapter is basically explaining everything - there is very little action here so it might be a little boring. I just thought that I would explain everything in one chapter so I won't have to do it later. 

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Vampires: The abilities are mostly based on Anne Rice's vampires. There are very few elements from Vampire: The Masquerade (social standings from Caitiff to Antediluvian, name of the first vampire and few abilities but nothing more). There are some of my own ideas here also.

And the last important things.

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Italics are thoughts

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Those are emphasis

And these are written

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It was a long time since he had last seen this place. In fact, to him it seemed like millennia had passed. But it was only two years. And yet, the station, smell, sight of it sent shivers down his spine. It was really a wonder that he could still feel so many human feelings. Especially after what happened to him during last years of his life. 

Maybe the reason of strangeness of this place was because of his heightened senses. Many things in him were quite unpredictable. After all he was the first wizard who managed to become a vampire and live. Usually vampires were muggles before they were born to darkness. 

Harry Potter tried to close his mind from the avalanche of thoughts, which attacked him as he entered the platform 9 3/4. Vampiric mind reading abilities were a gift, but in crowded places like that it seemed to him that this was rather a curse. Thank God that he could just shut them out of his head.

Harry saw Aurors patrolling this place. He greeted them with saluting sign. After all, most of them knew that he was going to work undercover here. Not many places required guardianship so strict that it involved mages from Department of Mysteries.

Two years ago, during the summer between his 4th and 5th year Dumbledore told Harry that he should go and train to be a mage. It was probably the only possible way for him to be protected from Voldemort. The only known place in the world where mages could be trained was English Ministry of Magic, the Department of Mysteries. After Fudge was forced into vice-minister position, while Amos Diggory became Minister of Magic the thought of working for the Ministry became interesting. And so Harry was now working in the department.

Mages in reality were wizards who were trained to control their magic only with their minds. There were no wands, gestures or incantations needed for them to perform magic. Most of the mages were only able to master one or two schools of magic before they had to quit learning. The amount of so-called 'raw magical power', which accumulated in their bodies, was at that level of training so high that they would literally explode if they continued to train further.

Mage training went like this: First you learned very basics of every school of magic - few curses, counter-curses, wards, protection spells, some Dark Arts, some mind magic etc. Of course, everything solely with mind. After that you choose your favourite school(s) of magic and mastered it(them).

It was probably going to be the same with Harry if one thing didn't happen. He was changed into a vampire. He didn't know why, but he survived. You see, vampiric blood and magic that is in human beings always fight each other. It leads to true death in very short time. However it was different in Harry. His vampiric and magical powers connected to each other and were now dependent on each other. He suspected that it have to do something with the fact that he was a mage at the time of transformation. There was only one other possibility where person was 'vampire' and wizard at the same time - being a half-vampire. 

Thanks to this connection number of things happened. First, Harry became immune to sunlight (although having that kind of resistance was possible thanks to a spell or a potion). Second, there was no limit to amount of raw magical power in his body. And lastly the third - because of the connection, if one of his strengths (wizard's or vampire's abilities) was strong then the second also became strong to 'equal' the other. That lead to interesting thing, once his magic became stronger so did his vampiric abilities - the only problem with that was that the effect was quite temporary.

Vampire could gain power in two ways - through age and blood. The first way - through age was quite simple. The older vampire got, the more powerful he became and the more abilities he possessed. And the second way - through blood. When a vampire willingly gave his blood to another (and was at least two times older that the one feeding) he also copied part of his powers into the feeding one. But the limit of the power 'copied' was half of total power of the one who was giving blood. Similar thing happened during transformation - human transformed into immortal could gain up to half of the powers of the one who gave the blood. Judging by the strength of his vampiric abilities Harry was probably bitten by a vampire that was around 2500 years old.

Vampires also had several social standings. They varied mostly because of age. However Harry was never interested in them simply because he would be probably considered a Caitiff - outcast of the society.

The vampiric abilities which Harry had were now were: incredibly heightened senses, strength, agility and other psychical stuff, ability to fly, incredible mind controlling, telepathic and mind reading abilities (Harry was practically able to do everything with exposed mind - delete, read or change memories, change feelings, read current thoughts, mind control others. Practically a mind was a computer for him. And like in computers, here you had to hack into mind sometimes, too). There were also abilities like: vampiric mind (it was a very strange thing - when you were a vampire most of the languages were understandable for you, you could read with speed which would astonish the fastest-reading humans in the world, you had a great memory and various other things like that). Muggle psychic abilities were greatly amplified thanks to transformation and were very easy to control.

There were few others abilities that Harry used, but rarely. When Harry became a vampire he had a good laugh at the supposed methods to kill vampires. In reality the only possible way to kill a vampire was through sunlight, fire or beheading. Of course, magical ways to kill also worked. Vampire could see himself in mirror without a problem (well, unless a wizard cursed them). Looking at crucifix, touching holy water or doing anything with any Christian symbols also didn't do anything - as much as some people would like to believe vampires weren't 'the ultimate evil'. But sometimes he wished to be able to change into mist. It would be such incredible ability. Shape shifting into animal would also be great. It would be like being animagus with a snap of fingers. He couldn't dismiss these particular abilities - after all vampires had endless life. He had power of thousand years old but he was sure that there were ones that were several thousands of years old. Vampires that ancient probably possessed many other abilities. 

Harry was now using amplified version of Polyjuice potion. It was one of many potions, which were only known to those who worked at Department of Mysteries. It worked until you gave counter-potion. Thanks to it Harry could assume any human appearance at will (but the changes could only cover face or skin colour). Right now, he got rid of the famous scar. He kept his hair as it was - it wasn't an unusual colour. He only flattened it a little. But he simply had to change colour of his eyes - green was too unusual. It could arouse suspicion. So, instead of green he had now very dark brown, in fact they were so dark that if you looked at them in shadowy place you would think that they were black. Although he had rather thin face, his cheekbones were barely visible. His jaw was quite angular. He also had quite dark tan. All in all, he made sure that his appearance didn't look too unusual or didn't look too vampiric. He wasn't going to try to keep knowledge that he was vampire in secret but also, he didn't want to scare students with his looks. Besides even if people shunned away from him he could still read their minds for information. And the Polyjuice could only change his human parts of face, and fangs weren't one of those (but when retraced they were almost unnoticeable). It wouldn't really arouse suspicion - knowledge that wizards couldn't turn into vampires was one of those things, which was kept strictly on 'need-to-know' basis in the ministry. 

The Ministry gave Hogwarts quite solid protection. Fifty Aurors were placed in the train to Hogwarts; another fifty would come to protect Hogwarts. There were thirty unspeakables in Hogwarts already, modifying and upgrading the wards around Hogwarts. They wouldn't stay later - their job was only to strengthen the defences. And finally five teams of mages were going to get there. Mages were always working either solo, with someone or in team of five people. That would mean 25 mages in the school. Five of them would work undercover. Four as students (one for each house) and one as DADA teacher. Harry was going to be student in the Gryffindor tower. His job was mainly to find out whether any student babbled in something dark.

The teacher's name was going to be Andrew Bolton. This guy was truly a genius when you thought about Dark Arts, defensive and offensive magic. But in result of his intelligence he treated everyone else like dirt. Harry could sense that he was a person who could be liked - he had a great deal of good emotions but he was so proud that he couldn't let the positive feelings out. Instead of letting them out he put on a mask with words 'cold-hearted bastard who treats everyone like sh*t". He was already old man, around his sixties, but still in excellent health. He was always ready to fight. He was a Dark Mage - one of the rarest in the ministry. A Dark Mage was a mage who specialised in Dark Arts. Harry couldn't imagine how this guy was going to teach everyone there. He was going to be worse than Snape was during his school days. Of course, he respected Severus because of his dangerous 'job', hard tasks he had to face and number of trails which happened in his life. But that didn't change the fact that he was a bastard to Harry.

Thank God that rest of Harry's team members were quite pleasant to be with. Alicia Smith was his current girlfriend, although he knew that this relationship wasn't going to last any longer than next few weeks. Here she was going to be called under surname of 'Johns'. She was going to be working with Ravenclaws. Although Harry found her nice, helpful, caring, she irritated him sometimes with acting like stupid, whiny kid. She was quite average looking - blonde hair, blue eyes, quite pretty face and nice body. It sounded like she was hot but in reality she looked just okay. She was a War Mage - a mage specialised in hand-to-hand combat and offensive spells.

Third member of the team was Harry's best friend in the Department. And the only person other than Alicia, whom he knew real name of. His real name was Fred Bones (here he would be Fred Clark). He was a half-vampire and that probably made him somewhat special to Harry. His father was a vampire and as far as Harry knew, Fred never got to know him. Fred was really loyal friend, smart, great to be with although he had completely no sense of humour. Fred thanks to heightened limit of raw magical power in his body learned three different schools of magic. He was a War Mage, Animal Mage (a mage who specialises in magical creatures magic, languages and so on) and an Assassin Mage (a mage who specialises in silent killing, spying and other 'stealth' jobs). Unfortunately for him he was going to spy on Slytherins (maybe here his specialisation as an Assassin Mage would come in handy).

Fourth person was James Forte. His character was really unknown to Harry - they rarely spoke to each other. He knew that James tended to be silent, some people thought he was mute, but Harry heard him talking more than enough times to tell that he wasn't. James was also someone who mastered more than one school of magic - He was a Defence Mage (anything that had to do with protection, wards or counter-curses) and Mind Mage (this practically allowed him to scan and make use of minds as Harry could with his vampiric abilities and also it allowed him to amplify his psychic abilities with magic).

Well and the fifth member was Harry himself. He was going to be here as Harold Clark - brother of Fred Clark. Harry changed both psychically and mentally since his fourth year. He was no longer cheerful, adventurous guy he used to be. He knew the feel of pain, hunger, struggling to survive. He experienced a lot of emotional, mental and psychical blows. He was rather cold, bitter and sarcastic to most of people and opened the true - warm, caring and funny self only to those whom he trusted with life. During the last two years he went through the most excruciating training any human (or during the most recent times vampire) ever endured. He was learning and training 24 hours a day. He didn't need to sleep as a vampire. In result he was the only one _ever_ to master _all_ standard schools of magic (mastering specialisations, additional courses, potions and so one would take him a veeeery long time, at least he had something to do with endless life as undead). However this knowledge even combined with his vampiric abilities didn't make him all knowing or all-powerful. Very many older mages or even powerful wizards (who knew how to fight with a vampire) could defeat him.

Those were all of the people he knew who were going on mission. He didn't really need to know anyone else. He reported everything to Andrew Bolton and continued his job.

Harry put the tip of the wand into his mouth and muttered '_Sanguis_'. Immediately his mouth was filled with warm, human blood. And immediately he felt the complete bliss of drinking it. In moments like these he _really_ liked to be a vampire. No human could experience such pleasure, not even through love or sex. He drunk a little more and muttered '_Finite Incantatem_'. He whipped his mouth (there wasn't really anything to whip - vampires spilled blood only in movies, even the most clumsy and inexperienced vampire was far too skilled to spill a drop). 

He looked around to find a nice, empty compartment. Almost immediately he found one and took his trunk to it. Just as he sat down he saw that Alicia was entering the same room. He raised an eyebrow.

"Already miss me?" He said while grinning. Alicia just rolled her eyes.

"You have a big head... Clark" She grinned mischievously and dropped herself on his lap.

"Oh my God, you're so heavy..." He smiled at her, while she smacked him playfully on arm. Harry looked around to see if anyone was close. "Did you see others?"

"Yeah, your _brother_..."She smiled a little "... and James."

"And anyone who is not one of us?"

"Yeah, I talked to few people."

"You know, it's going to be big, probably bloody mission. I don't like it already. Brings too many memories."

"But it won't be as bad. You had few mission involving travelling in time. And missions like that are such pain in the arse... Always worrying that you can alter whole timelines."

"Well, I exactly know what you're talking about. Did I tell you that I once fell in love in the past?"

"No you didn't."

"At the time I thought that the girl was my, y'know 'the one', 'soul mate', 'true love', call it as you wish but as I see it with perspective it may have been love but I'm not really sure of it. I think that this question will ponder me for whole eternity."

They talked for some time. Mainly about past missions, Voldemort, their relationship, other mages and few other things. After some time Alicia fell asleep in Harry's arms. He wasn't going to sleep now - not after 'no sleeping' period of three months. It would be simply strange to simply rest now, after months of extreme work, training, stress etc. He levitated her gently and lay next to him so that she would be comfortable and he would be able to go.

Harry used invisibility charm on himself (this charm was his personal success after hundreds of hours of struggling - only five wizards in century before him managed to get the charm done properly). He went to look around, just to look if he would recognise any faces. Maybe he could also find others from Department to talk to.

He found James being almost attacked by swarm of girls. Harry set kind of telepathic connection, so that James would be able to see him but as someone translucent so he would clearly know that he remained invisible. James noticed him and sent him a telepathic message saying 'Help me!' Well, James choose himself rather good-looking form using the Polyjuice potion. He was now a good-looking guy with light-blue eyes and blonde hair. He had quite pale face and very smooth skin. All in all he looked more like vampire than Harry did now. If you don't count fangs. But as Harry suspected James was rather... well, inexperienced (that's a HUGE understatement) with girls.

Harry couldn't really guess what James needed help with. After all being in centre of affection of girls wasn't a bad thing, was it? Well, maybe James was shy person, Harry never knew. He sent telepathically few sentences to James and after that he left him there.

Harry soon found Andrew pretending to sleep. Unfortunately Andrew wasn't a Mind Mage but every mage went through at least basics of telepathic communication. Well, maybe he forgot because Harry couldn't send him a message now and he didn't want to mess with his mind.

He went on until he found a compartment where he saw someone familiar. Now there's Fred Weasley sitting... Wait, wasn't Fred supposed to have left the school already? Harry looked closer and saw that this was _Ron_. The similarity to Fred (or George) at that age was smashing. At least his old friend looked good. He was tall, _very_ muscular; his hair was much darker now, almost resembling something between red and brown.

The next second he recognised other faces here. Draco Malfoy was there. Most surprising fact was that others seemed entirely okay with the fact that he was sitting there. Well, relationships change sometimes. He was as tall as Ron and was rather thin though few muscles were showing here and there.

Next to him a nice looking girl with red hair whom held his hand. Well, if Malfoy started dating Ginny then this explained a lot of things. Ron, Hermione and _Draco_ couldn't be sworn enemies if Ron's sister dated him (maybe at the beginning Ron would be acting like a git but later he would just have to live with it). What surprised him was that neither Ron nor Hermione did show any feelings towards each other. When he left state of things seemed like they were going to date in few months. Harry briefly scanned their minds and found out - they were an item form brief time at the beginning of their fifth year, however they simply couldn't stand the arguing. When they were friends it was reasonable however in relationship it became unbearable.

However the most startling difference was in Hermione. Her hair didn't completely lose its bushiness but it flattened to reasonable state. She was nicely curved, had a little tan. She was quite short. She looked, to simply put it, good.

Harry certainly wanted to introduce himself now, however he didn't know how they would react to vampire student they just met. Besides he wasn't good at making friends. He was always able to leave that to Alicia in the Department... 

And so, he went to his compartment and for the first time in three months fell asleep, next to Alicia. 

When he woke up he saw that everyone from his team (except for Andrew) was in the compartment. Alicia was already up and was talking with others. It was dark, probably only hour or two before they arrived. Well, he woke up in good time, since few people entered the compartment; few very familiar people.

"Hello, my name is Ron Weasley. I heard that you're from Durmstrang." Durmstrang had been second largest school in Europe - it was destroyed few weeks ago by Voldemort's forces. In their background story - they were from Durmstrang. They had to learn everything about this school before they went to the mission. Alicia immediately picked up conversation and introduced everyone. Harry smiled to himself. He would probably never be as outgoing as Alicia was.

Harry listened and he got to know that now Ron was chaser for Gryffindor team. He was very good with all school subjects. Harry looked over him more carefully and noticed that he had a symbol of shield with phoenix on his right wrist. No human could see that but a powerful vampire could pierce through glamour with keen vampiric eyesight. It was a symbol of Dumbledore's group fighting Voldemort. Well, it was quite interesting that Ron was one of them - after all to become a 'Protector' as they called themselves you had to be quite powerful wizard. Finally Ron directed his attention to Harry with a simple question.

"Do you play quidditch?"

"I used to play few years ago but I don't have time to do it now. I was a seeker, fairly good one as I heard."

He heard Ron let out a barely audible gasp as he noticed Harry's fangs. Although fangs were now barely visible (they extended to full length when drinking blood or when vampire wanted them to extend) they were still about 1/8 of inch longer than normal teeth were. And the next question pointed out that he didn't choose to ignore it.

"Since when are you a... vampire?

Well, he never was the best when it got to sensitiveness. Harry could answer this question truthfully.

"Half a year."

Ron seemed satisfied with the answers or he simply realised that it isn't polite to ask question about Harry's vampirism. He tried to engage James into conversation. He failed. 

After some time he got up, said goodbye and went out. It was probably because of the sight outside. Hogwarts was already visible. Harry quickly changed into his robes. The train stopped and Harry felt his eyes wet with blood tears when he heard the familiar voice booming.

"First years and Durmstrang students over here!"

He blinked back tears as he saw Hogwarts. Home. He was home.

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A/N: So this is the first chapter. I hope that you liked it. Encouraging and constructive criticism welcomed. Flames not. 


	2. Friends

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Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Author's note: Well, this is the second chapter. I hope that long-waiting time will be repaid with the fact that it's quite long chapter (it is almost 5000 words). Oh, warning - there is some POV-switching in this chapter. I'll try to post next update on Monday (2nd September). Now answers to the questions in reviews.

moon - In the romance category I would say that there will be some more... serious feelings but no relationships like that (maybe in the background). If there will be some relationships than they will be like Harry's and Alicia's - merely light relationship. You will be able to see at the end of this chapter that someone has more-than-light feelings for someone but I will not make them an item and I'll certainly not focus on them. Trust me :)

Drew - If there will be romance then it will be very light. Read my response to moon's review to see what I mean. And about 'Last Will'. Although the story won't be finished, I have idea for a fic that has very similar beginning but a really different plot inside of it. But that's talking about distant future :) I still have to rewrite 'The New Powers' and write a sequel to it :)

Thank you to all of you who reviewed!

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It seemed impossible for him. And yet, there it was, castle, school of magic, his home. Ehh, he couldn't get all-emotional now. He saw Hagrid and followed him. He found his team and four of them went inside of the boat. Andrew was going to the school with other students. A sudden thought struck Harry - why didn't he just Apparate here earlier? Slowly they started sailing to the school.

As they arrived Harry once again looked at everything there. It all looked so different with his new eyesight. Soon, he was walking along with the first years and his friends from Department. Few minutes later they were standing in front of Professor McGonagall. Hagrid waved them goodbye.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. Sorting ceremony will begin in few minutes. It's a very important because, while you're here your house will be like family for you." Harry looked in James's direction who was frowning _Not very surprising _Harry thought. "You will sleep in your dormitory, spend free time in common room and have lessons with your friends from the house. You also earn house points…" Harry stopped listening to McGonagall's talking. After all he knew everything about this. 

Few seconds later Professor took them to the Great Hall. As far a she knew they really were transfer students. Dumbledore was supposed to tell her who they really are, later. Harry glanced at the first years who looked really nervous. He was probably equally nervous few years ago.

Doors of the Great Hall slowly opened. The first years walked in and then his team followed. It still looked marvellous. Thousands of candles and the bewitched ceiling were incredible. This place didn't lose its appeal even after years of time.

Harry saw as McGonagall called nervous first years, one by one. Harry wondered how could he be that small. He also noticed that Slytherins got the highest number of kids. After every first year was sorted Dumbledore stood up and the Great Hall quieted instantly.

"This year we will have four additional 7th year students. They are all from Durmstrang Institute of Magical Arts [Does it go like this?]. I hope that you will welcome them kindly." Dumbledore was probably the only one in this school who now knew that the new students weren't who they pretended to be. McGonagall started reading the list again.

"Clark, Frederick." Harry chuckled a little. Fred went to the stool and put the hat on. Not surprisingly after few minutes it shouted out…

"SLYTHERIN!" Cheers rose from the Slytherin table. Fred looked a bit grumpy. No wonder, Harry thought, I would also be grumpy if I would have to spy on the Slytherins.

"Clark, Harold." Harry went and put on the hat. Immediately a silent voice started whispering into his ear.

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"And who do we have here?"

"You know me well."

"Oh my, shouldn't you be sorted into Slytherin?" Harry immediately told the hat what he thought about being sorted into Slytherin.

"You know I have to be in Gryffindor."

"Oh yes, you have to. Well, I won't do anything to get your mission failed. GRYFFINDOR!" Cheers rose from Gryffindor table. Harry put the hat on the stool and headed to his old table. Few seconds later he found empty place. He sat up and saw that others were already sorted. Dumbledore rose again.

"Welcome to Hogwarts this year. I don't have anything to say except, tuck in!" He sat down again. Harry unfortunately couldn't join the feast. He got up and used a cloaking charm on himself. It wasn't invisibility charm. It made everyone ignore him and think of him as an unimportant element of the background.

He went to the Gryffindor tower. He read the Fat Lady's mind and gave her the password. He chuckled to himself when he realised that he indeed, could read mind of painting. Immediately the way to the tower opened. He couldn't think of anything else except 'Its good to be home' as he headed to his dormitory.

He found his bed and fell on it. Immediately he felt so heavy and lazy that he would welcome the sleep with bright smile on his face. However he wasn't going to rest. After few seconds he heard a silent 'click' sound in his head. It was a sign that someone wanted to engage him in telepathical talk. 

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"Yeah?"

"Harry, it's me James. Bolton told us to meet him in the dungeon. We have to get introduced to the Protectors."

"Sure."

"I mean it! Get over here, NOW!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

Drowsily Harry got up. He always liked to sleep as a vampire even if he didn't need to do it. He used a little bit of magic that made him more awake than he would be normally after ten coffees and ran to the dungeon with astonishing speed. No human could possibly see him now. If he passed someone, the person would feel him as wind.

Corridors passed in astonishing speed. From his vampiric gifts this was the one he was probably enjoying the most. Running with speed beyond limits. It felt like flying on broom (although he could fly without it, that kind of flight gave him really creepy feeling - he didn't like it). After few seconds the dungeons appeared in his view. He immediately stopped and proceeded with normal walking speed. Few seconds later he saw Fred waiting for him.

"Let's go." He told him. Fred then pressed few, seemingly random, bricks on the wall. Few seconds later the wall seemed to become translucent and then it disappeared completely. Harry walked inside of the room. There were all mages' teams here plus about thirty other people. They were Protectors residing in the school. The room looked a little like miniature Great Hall, except it had two tables instead of four and the tables were few times smaller. Harry sat next to Fred at the end of the table where others mages were. Harry looked at the opposite table. There were several students there. He noticed with surprise that Draco Malfoy was also there. Dumbledore was sitting in the same place where he used to sit in the Great Hall. He rose.

"Welcome today on this grand meeting. I have requested additional defence force from the Ministry. They helped us instantly sending very well trained people. We have fifty Aurors on school grounds that will be residing here for whole school year. Fifteen unspeakables used new defence spells and additional wards at the school. But the 'elite' is gathered here. Twenty-five mages, five of them will be working undercover…" Harry oozed off as Dumbledore continued to talk. He told them how to recognise mages (mages had a very small mark on their left wrist - blue lightning bolt, it was invisible to anyone but those who were placed under special charm, or those who could be completely trusted by the mage). He also paid special attention to those five who would be working undercover. That meant Harry's team. Dumbledore also said the he will set up a training room for them. Harry didn't really listen to Dumbledore. He could later use a memory charm on himself to listen to it if it was important. He scanned with his eyes the Protectors, just to remember their faces later - if anything happened. 

About half an hour later the meeting ended and he was free to go. Few people already left the room. He also did that. A good night sleep would do wonders for him now. He was now walking slowly to the Gryffindor tower. It wasn't a long time till Ron, Hermione and Ginny caught up with him. These three were in the Protectors.

"So you're going to be in Gryffindor tower." Hermione stated.

"Yes."

"How long are you working for the Ministry?" Hermione continued.

"Two years." She exchanged glance with Ron.

"Can you… possibly know where Harry Potter is?" Harry stopped. She looked at him with hope visible in her eyes. He looked her directly into eye and replied without showing any kind of emotion.

"This is none of my concern." He turned his back on her and started walking again to the tower. She whispered to him in broken voice.

"So you know where he is. You just don't want to tell us."

"Why do you think so?"

"If you didn't have any clue of his whereabouts you would simply tell us 'No'"

Harry could feel now his temper raising. It was unfortunate thing he had to cope with. He didn't know why but ever since he became vampire, he had many mood-swings and he got angered very easily. Additionally he was extremely short-tempered in stressful situation. "Let me tell you something Ms.Granger. What Harry Potter is doing now or where he is has nothing to do now with you. You haven't seen him in two years. He could be completely different person now. He could be a werewolf or a vampire, just like me. What would you do then? What would you do if he turned dark? If he was now Death Eater? Or if he defeated Lord Voldemort and took his place? Hmm? What if he didn't want to have anything in common with you? Have you ever thought of that?" She stared at him with tears in her eyes. In moments like this Harry truly hated his job. But he had to do it. They couldn't know who he was really. Harry walked away now determined to just go and not listen to her, cursing himself silently for his twisted emotions.

"Harry would never turn dark. He knows that we would accept him even if he turned into non-human." Harry turned around and looked at them. He whispered to himself.

"Sometimes I hate this job." He pointed his hand at them and muttered.

"_Obliviate._" Their faces took blank looks. They didn't remember anything from this conversation. Harry ran with inhuman speed to the dorm before they could spot him. He found his bed, lay down and fell asleep.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~

3rd person, Ron's POV

Ron thanked God that he thought about using some kind of memory-charm protection. Three of them drank a potion against memory-charmes. It was a very powerful one but it worked for very short time (10 minutes) and you couldn't take second dose for next 24 hours. He was also glad that Harry lost his temper in very short time. But that meant the he could possibly know something about disappearance of his best friend.

They got the idea from Hermione. She thought that if anyone in the world knew something about Harry's disappearance then it would be Dumbledore. He gave them a hint that Harry is training to be 'more than normal wizard'. Hermione later researched it and came with idea that Harry might have become either mage or a enchanter (a wizard who focuses his magic through touching things he wants to use magic on instead of using wands). They quickly assumed that training to be enchanter wouldn't make any sense for Harry. And then they discovered that the only known place where mages were trained was Department of Mysteries. They couldn't hide their enthusiasm when they heard that mages from department would be coming to guard Hogwarts. After all there might be a mage who would know something about Harry or would _be_ Harry.

Harold Clark was their 'guardian' in the Gryffindor tower. He was the mage they would see everyday and Ginny sort of assumed he would be helpful. It was Ron who thought about some protection measures.

And again Ron analysed Clark's reaction to the questioning. 'This is none of my concern.' What was that supposed to mean? This was not his job to tell few kids where their best friend is? Yeah, probably that was right. Hermione then told him something that was plaguing Ron's mind since the statement was told. And then he freaked out telling some sort of scenarios about 'What could Harry be doing at the moment?' And then 'Sometimes I hate this job' Why? Why did he hate to erase their memories? If there were nothing to do it he would erase their memories to get rid of them without showing any kind of emotion.

All in all, Ron's mind was an avalanche of ideas, thoughts, memories and analyses.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Back to Harry's POV

Harry woke up the next day very early. It was time to start his job. He sincerely hoped that no one in the Gryffindor house would be involved with the dark side. He got up and took a shower (he didn't need to take one but it always made him feel better). He went to the gym to train a few things.

There were some other people already there. There was his whole team except for James, few Protectors and Aurors. He trained the spells with which he had problems. About two hours passed when almost every mage and protector was there.

Much to his dismay Ron and Hermione were there also. He wasn't in mood to talk to them so he continued his training. He noticed that Fred got much better in controlling his vampiric powers. He was a lot faster, stronger and better with his mental power. Harry hoped that his magical powers grew equally stronger. Fred approached him after few minutes.

"Want to duel?" Harry eyed him curiously. Fred _never_ wanted to duel with him. It was always Harry who dragged him into duel.

"Sure."

~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Hermione's POV

"Want to duel?"

"Sure."

Hermione eyed the two of them with interest. She also noticed that mages looked like they were… glad? Happy? No, it couldn't be this emotion. She approached random mage and asked her.

"What's going on?" The mage eyed her. Hermione felt like she was x-rayed.

"Harry is a vampire, and Fred a half-vampire. They are both very powerful with their magic and vampiric powers. They are quite equal. Duels between them are intense, fast and you can see a great deal of cool magic. Want to watch them?"

"Sure." It would be interesting to watch two vampiric mages duel.

"I'm Alicia by the way."

"I'm Hermione. Are they going to duel here?"

"Well, not exactly. They're going to use a special spell. It will transport them to a battlefield. They can duel without rules there - they can use killing curses on each other, disintegrate each other etc. but after the duel ends they instantly regenerate themselves. They also feel all the pain. We can watch them but we will be out of body - like the rest of watchers."

"How can we go there?"

"Look, the spell goes like that. They touch tips of their wands and say an incantation. You just think 'I want to go there' and you will be watching them."

Hermione looked at two guys who were now chanting a very long incantation. Few seconds passed and they froze in place and were surrounded by golden bubble. Hermione thought 'I want to go there' and she immediately found herself floating above some kind of land. In was absolutely flat and as far as Hermione could see the ground went into infinity. The ground was green but there was no grass there. It was completely flat and hard like bricks. Few seconds later and two fighters appeared and along with them many spirits watching the duel. Hermione floated to Alicia and asked her why weren't they moving.

"They are going to use some Blood Magic."

"What?"

"Blood Magic is a type of magic which involves blood of all kinds of creatures. It's pretty complicated and as a human you can't use it - your blood is too weak. But it's very powerful. See? They can pierce their skin at will. And look - the blood isn't pulled down by gravity - it's floating. They can make symbols with it. Well, after they make the symbol it ignites and forms into an orb. It then starts floating around you and when you want to use it you just take it and use. They're starting to use it now."

Hermione saw as both of them started drawing in air a pentacle. It ignited, formed into an orb and started floating around them. Hermione saw as Harry started forming few circles and every one of them started floating around him.

"What are these spells?"

"Pentacle is gigantic wall of fire and circle in amplifying of an spell. Harry is famous for this second one."

  
  
"Why?"

"Well, normal person can (of course not with their own blood) amplify the spell to make it about 5 times stronger. But it's different with Harry. He has an _extremely_ powerful amplifying spell. But he says that it's very tiring. It makes the spell somewhere around 100 to 500 times stronger. Well as I see they start real duel."

~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Harry's POV and now on we continue here

Harry looked at Fred who stood with calm confidence about sixty feet from him. Few orbs containing powerful Blood Magic flew around him. An aura of power surrounded him. For the first time in his life Harry thought he might actually lose a duel to Fred. Fred eyed the orbs flying around Harry with little fear in his eye but quickly regained the calm posture.

Before Harry could do anything a fireball sizzled brushing his shin. He dodged it just in time because second fireball already flew in the direction. He started to shout out a spell but he got hit with another fireball in his stomach before he could finish the incantation. He flew away seventy feet with scorched stomach, which, not surprisingly regenerated itself after a moment. 

"Sh*t, he got really tough."

"What, Harry? So weak suddenly." Came Fred's mocking voice few hundred feet away. Fred barely had time to think about something when his brain was attacked in avalanche of his worst memories. He put his palm on his forehead and tried to clear all of his thoughts. No chance. Harry was simply too good with mind control stuff. He would have to fight remembering all of the worst things that happened to him in life. He barely dodged the Avada Kedavra Harry cast.

Harry had his wand out. He often used it even if he was a mage.

"_Avada Kedavra Avada Kedavra Avada Kedavra Avada Kedavra Avada Kedavra"_

Fred ducked swiftly the spells and reappeared on Harry's right side. Before Harry had time to react he was hit with Cruciatus.

He fell on one knee and willed the pain to go away. Maybe a few seconds passed and it was no longer there. He stopped finding the worst memories in Fred's brain only to replace it with making him think that he heard screams from every direction and every place.

Fred now noticed the way Harry moved in this duel. He shot one spell in Harry's direction and immediately another in the direction he anticipated Harry to move. His predictions were correct. Harry dodged the spell but was hit with the second one and he was immediately paralysed.

Harry didn't have a hope in hell to break this spell. Fred bit his finger and blood started flowing out of it. He made few symbols with it and collected the created orbs into one. Then he shot the spell at Harry. 

A terrible roar filled Harry's ears. And second later a blow so powerful that not in his wildest dreams he imagined one that could equal this one hit him in the chest. He was flying from it that was sure. But as he quickly realised the paralysing curse no longer worked. He used the flying abilities he had as a vampire to stop himself.

Immediately a feeling of inhumanity and strangely supernatural nature of this gift swept over him. When he wasn't a vampire he sometimes thought how it would be to fly without a broom but now he was sure - he hated it with passion. Still, it was useful sometimes.

He flew down to the ground as fast as he could and tried to plan a strategy. He thought before that Fred could be more powerful than he would expect him to be but he never imagined that Fred could be _that_ powerful. He needed some kind of plan, but he couldn't think of one.

In the meantime Fred already managed to shot several curses at him. Harry barely managed to dodge every one because in meantime he placed a charm on himself that made him much stronger and faster.

  
Suddenly a thought occurred to him. _If I can't beat him with magic, than I could with brute force_. He caught the sight of one of the blood magic orbs. _Amplification spell_. Suddenly the idea formed in his mind. He forced all of the amplification charms he had in one and used the charm again that made his stronger and faster again.

He felt invincible. He could move hundred times faster than before. In the real world this charm had no use - after the effect worn off, person would be tired beyond anything. But here he only had one duel and he wouldn't feel after-effects. He was now moving so fast that Fred didn't even see a blur.

Harry tried to focus all of his magical energy into his fist. Slowly a tingling sensation went through all of his body and concentrated in his fist. He would simply punch Fred as hard as he could. With several his amplification charms and vampiric strength…

He started going in circles around Fred. Even with his better half-vampire's senses Fred wasn't able to see him. In one quick move he came behind him and punched him as hard as he could. And seconds later he was holding Fred's heart in his hand, while his arm was in Fred's body only the forearm and hand was out. The reality faded away.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~

"You won." Fred admitted defeated as they both came back to senses. 

"Yeah, I'm unbeatable."

"Try fighting Bolton, we'll see about the unbeatable part." He grinned at Harry.

"You know, I'm really good, but Bolton has something with his mind, you know. No one sane can be _that_ good at duelling."

"Oh, well, what can we do? He's just psycho and that's all."

"Okay, let's get back to training."

"Nice duel." He heard Alicia say next to his ear.

"Yeah, right."

"Fred got really good."

"Unfortunately I got to know that in the hard way."

"I saw. I'll leave you alone now, as I see that someone wants to talk to you."

"Who?"

"Old friend." She smiled and went back to train something. Harry turned around to see that Hermione wanted to talk to him about something.

"Yes?"

"Could I talk to you?"

"What about?"

"Just a… casual talk."

"Sure." He smiled a little. "Do you want to go outside?"

"Okay."

The both walked to the outside. During the walk Harry eyed her with his eyes. He noticed with his vampiric senses few things that would go unnoticed for humans unless you looked really close. She had a little too much red in her eyes, she must have been crying few hours earlier. Harry also noticed that she was much quieter and that his presence gave her strong reminders of long-forgotten memories and emotions. He didn't specially read her mind to sense that - he just sensed it like humans sometimes sensed that someone was behind them even if they weren't able to notice anything suspicious.

"Can you talk about your vampirism?" Asked him Hermione.

"Sure, I got over the kind of 'trauma' after it quite long time ago. I simply accepted it and tried to get out the good sides of it. You know, I'm going to live as much as I want to. I didn't lose my soul. I still have my mind and, although changed, my body. There were many changes but I was made by a powerful vampire enough to have quite big advantages. I came to accept it."

"Did something change in the way you think?"

"Yeah, there were few changes. First of all the emotions - they are the same, but there's a difference. You see, I'll explain it in that way to you. Most of the people want to find love, solace, and understanding of others. They seek for these things sometimes for whole their lives. However I can say to you, that although I can still feel these emotions, I don't really require them. I would be equally happy to live in the desert with no one to talk as well as I can live in a town having thousands of friends and my soul mate."

"I think I understand. Although there's no problem with feeling the emotions you don't have the need to feel them."

"Exactly. And besides that - vampires aren't blood-crazed. Some, very few of us went insane and now are nothing more than pumps for blood. But they are individuals. Of course I crave after the blood, I lust for it. I am powerful enough to survive without it for long times but it would be like living in celibacy."

"Oh. I never thought about it in that way."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for the most of my life I heard that vampires are just psychos who are mad with lust for blood. Of course, I heard stories about vampires - they are mostly the modern ones, which describe vampires as… well, very much like humans, who can't go into the sunlight and are a little different than us. I see that this fits."

"Yes."

"And what about the matter of being… well, dead?"

"Vampires who were muggles will never, ever change. Let's assume that I'm one and I had long hair in the time of change. If I would want to have short, than I would have to cut them everyday. But with magic I can live almost like a human."

"What are the general vampiric abilities?"

"Well…" Harry started saying. He didn't really want to go into too much detail about this."… they are extremely amplified mental, psychic, telepathic and mind controlling abilities, ability to fly, the whole strength and agility stuff and so on. The older vampire the more powerful he gets."

"How old are you?"

"As in vampiric or human life-span?"

"Both."

"Half year old as a vampire. I was nineteen and half when I was turned." [Remember that Harry had missions in the past?]

"So, if you are as powerful as half-year-old than how powerful is a thousand-year-old."

"I was turned by a very old vampire. He was probably somewhere around 2500 years old."

"Wow. So that means that you have strength equal to 2500 year old."

"No, the maker can only pass half of his strength. You can pass more but you will simply die. And what about you?"

"What?"

"Tell me something about you. I don't know, tell me about your friends, hobby, possible boyfriend?"

"Well, my name is Hermione Granger as you know already. I'm seventeen. I am Head Girl this year…"

"Why weren't you in compartment with other prefects, then?"

"I didn't want to go. As I was saying. I have three good friends now - they are Ron, Ginny and Draco. You saw them already, as far as I know. Ron was my first and last boyfriend in our fifth year. It didn't last simply because I had feelings for other boy."

"Who?"

"Harry Potter, but he's no longer here." Harry tried to remain expressionless. That was really hard considering that this shocked him to core. "I always hoped that Harry would someday return. I gave up my hopes in sixth year. Dumbledore wouldn't tell us anything, no other teacher knew anything. After that time I sometimes wish that I would get the news that he's dead. I would be sure then, and not like this wondering whether he's alive or imprisoned or what." Harry felt really bad now. She was really suffering without him. Harry saw as she blinked back tears. He wanted to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he had to remind himself that as far as she knew he was a stranger to her. But an odd thought caught him - maybe she was just trying to get him to feel pity for her and to tell her where 'Harry Potter' was.

"I'm pretty sure that he's there. Whatever he's doing now must be pretty important."

"And just how would you know that?"

"Why would he want to leave his friends if he didn't have anything important to do?"

"I just don't know."

Harry changed the subject from Harry Potter to her. As he talked to her he realised that Hermione didn't change during these two years. She was more mature, yes, but somewhere there she was still Hermione he knew. It saddened him to see that she had feelings for him for so long. Maybe after he broke up with Alicia something would come out of this?

* * *

A/N: I trust that this chapter was enjoyable and the cliffhanger isn't that tragic :) Now press this little button in the left corner of the screen and review :)

What in the next chapter? First DADA lesson with our loveable Andrew Bolton, strange creature and Voldie's new favourite potion.


	3. The Beast

__

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: Sorry that it took me so long to post the chapters, but frankly I realised that the chapter I wrote was complete *crap*. I had to rewrite it and it was *crap*. And so on and so forth how many times? FIVE! I was on brink of despair by the time I wrote this fifth time (I don't really know why - there aren't any difficult scenes here or anything like that, it just worked this way). This version is fairly satisfying and I can post it, and be proud of it :) Still, 4,200 words is too short IMO but I'll try to get... say 6000 words in the next chap :) Read, enjoy and review :)

* * *

They talked a little and he bid her goodbye. He went to his dormitory and went to bed. The talk was emotionally draining for him. And there came the problem with Hermione's feelings. He thought about it for long time and decided on course of action. He would write her a letter, from Harry Potter. But it wasn't time to write this now. He was already emotionally drained and writing a letter like that would only deepen this condition.

The next day he woke up and noticed that there was his timetable at the trunk. He would have Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as electives. Good, he would use some mind exercise instead of sitting in perfume-filled classroom listening to Trelawney's boring lessons.

But the first lesson today was surely going to be quite… adventurous. DADA with his oh-so-nice boss Andrew Bolton would be simply a marvellous event. There was a snowball's chance in hell that he was going to be somehow cheered up before seeing Bolton. And lesson with him was going to be a tragic event.

He conjured himself some blood and when he drank it he suddenly had a thought _Well, if there is anything to cheer me up than this is the thing_. He dressed himself in usual black school robes and went to the classroom, awaiting his doom. When he saw 'professor' entering the class he was sure that guy would want to make an impression.

Andrew lazily traced the desk with the tip of his wand. Harry simply couldn't know what was going on with the twisted mind of this guy. _He's probably thinking about making me miserable_ Harry thought. The teacher slowly stopped and put down his wand at the desk. 

"Maybe a few words of introduction. My name is Andrew Bolton. I used to work as an Auror in the ministry for last thirty-five years. I know a lot about Dark Arts and I want to teach you at least basics. Don't cheat yourself that you will know something more than that - it takes years of devoted studies to know something advanced about it. I won't be able to teach you everything but I at least hope that you will know how to defend yourself in critical situations. I won't lie to you. You will probably find the work exhausting and hard. You will hate me more than you could ever imagine. But when you will face a Death Eater or a Dark Creature you will thank God that I taught you. Now today's topic." He waved his wand at text appeared at the blackboard. And the first word of it was… 

"Vampires." He said loudly _Now that proves my previous suspicions… _"Are either an enemy you don't have to worry about or are the most powerful beings you'll every encounter. It all depends on the strength of this undead **creature**." He very loudly emphasised the word 'creature' and looked pointedly at Harry _Oh, yes, he simply **loves** to make me miserable_ "What I will tell you during this lesson, with some help from Mr.Clark will be everything you'll need to know about vampires."

"Let's start with little history. We do not know when, how or who was first vampire and how he became one. It is not necessary for you if you want to defend yourself against creatures of the night."

"If you face strong vampire, you're dead or embraced. If someone doesn't know vampires refer to transformation from mortal to vampire as an embracing."

"It's extremely hard to kill one. Sometimes it's simply impossible because after thousands of years vampire achieved practically complete immortality. Yes, I mean that they're almost invincible."

A gasp was heard among the class. Harry was sure that no one expected this. Well, knowledge about vampires was quite limited even in the Department of Mysteries. But Bolton was rather too overreacting. Even Antediluvian's [A/N: Antediluvian is the highest 'title' describing a vampire. Think of it as a synonym to demigod] neck could be cut of with sword. And you could kill being with magic.

"We do not know the maximum extent to which vampire powers can go but I assure you that if all of them could walk in daylight then we would be under their command. However even the eldest vampires cannot walk in the sunlight. This ability is reserved only to vampires that were wizards before they were… reborn. You wanted something Ms.Patil?"

Parvati looked around and then asked. "So why won't the vampires… err… _embrace_ wizards and then you know, do something like New World Order." Few nervous chuckles were heard among the class.

"I will get to that in a moment Ms.Patil Now, the important things you need to know. If you want to fight a vampire than you should first learn whether you would be able to defeat them. Surprisingly determining the strength of a vampire is extremely simple. You point wand at vampire and gesture it in sign of cross. Look." Bolton pointed the wand at Harry and made a gesture. Few seconds later a blue mist shot out of his wand and formed a number

'1254'

"You see this number normally from every side. This is age of the vampire or how old he should be when you think about it in terms of power. Don't worry, Mr.Clark isn't as old. His maker was very old and thus he has power of 1254 year old vampire."

"Now remember this. If the number is lower than 100 you can fight the guy and probably defeat him. But I won't say that this will be easy. Now I think that most of you after the school would be able to defeat a vampire that is somewhere between 100 and 250 and with additional help, for example potions which would enchant your psychical attributes you could defeat a vampire that is up to 300 maybe 350 years old." 

"And here the trouble begins. Vampire older than five hundred years old is a very worthy opponent. Only trained vampire slayers are able to kill ones as powerful. If you get vampires that are one millennium or older than I think that a War Mage might be able to beat one that powerful. Vampires older than two and half thousand years are akin to demigods. Vampires older than five millennia are practically beyond your imagination. I don't even think about Vampires who would be for example ten thousand years old. A creature like that would be something like incarnate of power." Some people were now nervously glancing at Harry.

"I'll tell you about something. I once knew a vampire that was a muggle before embrace and at the time I met him when he was five millennia old. He was able to ignite whole forests with merely a thought." Few jaws dropped.

"And now to Ms.Patil's question. To embrace a wizard you need to be a very old vampire. Otherwise it's impossible. Do you know why? Because we're more alive than muggles. Our life… force is amplified with magic thus giving us much longer lives. And when vampire is embraced he must gain power to live as undead equal to or stronger than it was before the embracing. Besides there might be other reason - simple jealousy. The embracing vampire would be jealous of the sun-walking abilities of his child." _Duh, he's really good actor_

"I think that this will be enough for you now. Let's get to some practical knowledge. Identifying vampires. I don't think that any of you would know that Mr.Clark here is a vampire unless someone told you or you would look very closely at his teeth. Fangs are almost completely retraceable; skin can be tanned to normal level with a spell or by using a vampiric ability. Identifying is possible if a vampire doesn't use a spell or ability to glamour himself. Extremely pale and smooth skin plus fangs. That's a vampire."

"Now, how to defeat one? Forget about everything you know. Stakes are extremely useful when fighting a vampire but they don't kill. They immobilise a vampire that is up to somewhere around 250 years old and considerably slow down older vampires. But the old ones can pluck it out of their chests. If you want to kill one than we have fire, sunlight or magic."

"Now turn to page 64 in your books 'All you need to know about Dark Creatures' and take notes. For the next lesson I want to see five feet on parchment about vampires." Whole class groaned. "Maximum half feet of introduction, rest filled with practical information." Another groan from whole class. "If you want to get something additional except for the normal lessons than handle me ten feet of parchment on the subject. If anyone will try to get information from Mr.Clark I will personally make sure that this person won't pass the N.E.W.T.s Besides that I require you to learn at least two spells that could at neutralise a quite young vampire. Five spells if you want additional work." Then he added in almost self-hating tone "You are excused from the work today Mr.Clark as you have… personal experience."

Harry almost threw a curse at him. But he restrained. It wouldn't do any good for him. Well, maybe some people would actually like him since they would very soon learn to hate the bastard. That was however still not a good thing to do simply because Bolton was his superior. Both in Department and now as he was pretending to be a student.

Several minutes passed and everyone headed for transfiguration. Harry would later ask McGonagall to teach him how to accomplish Animagus transformation. At least he had something to look to. Harry said hello to James as he passed him in the corridor. Whole class arrived at already opened door to the classroom. Everyone seated immediately and McGonagall started speaking.

"In your first five years you covered transfiguration of animate and inanimate. Your fifth year was about human transfiguration and sixth about conjuration. In this year we will cover practically every kind of transfiguration but it will be rather… impressive one. Today we will start from turning bits of paper into… well, every one of you will have different assignment." She conjured several pieces of paper and wrote name of different animal on each one. She handed them the papers. Harry's eyes nearly fell out of his orbits when he saw what was written there.

Horse

He had to transfigure a **piece of paper** into **horse**?!?!? McGonagall went mad, that was certain. By groans of frustration in the classroom Harry suspected that others received assignments equally hard to his.

"Of course I don't expect that you will be able to do this today. It would be quite astonishing really. But by the end of the year I expect that you'll be able to do similar transfiguration."

Harry sighed, tore a little piece of parchment and put it on the floor. If he were about to change it into horse it wouldn't do good if the animal would be standing at the desk.

Harry focused all of his will on his task. He pointed his wand at the piece of parchment, pictured horse clearly in his head and simply tried to let the magic do the rest.

He felt power going from somewhere around his heart to his wand. He stopped it at his wrist as he realised that this will need 'little' more energy. In this transfiguration the actual problem was not the transfiguration itself (he could for example change a desk into horse). It was only the difference in size between a small piece of paper and grown horse. 

He felt that enough of magic accumulated in his wrist and he let it go through his wand and do the transfiguration. Surprisingly he almost managed the transfiguration. The only problem was that the horse was half of the required size. 

"Not bad Mr.Clark Ten points of Gryffindor." Harry smiled but focused on the task. He muttered 'Finite Incantatem' and the horse changed back into piece of paper.

For the rest of the lesson Harry tried to change little paper into horse he succeeded once but he couldn't repeat it later. The bell rang and his classmates went to lunch. He waited until everyone was out and approached professor McGonagall.

"Professor?"

"Yes?"

"Could you teach me how to become Animagus?"

Her eyes went wide. " If you really want to I could ask professor Dumbledore for permission and I could teach you."

"Of course."

"I will tell you when we will train."

Harry said goodbye and decided to go to the grounds. After all it was a long break now.

He wondered whether he could tell Hagrid that he was in fact Harry Potter. But then he remembered that his half-giant friend could never keep secrets. Harry saw that there was something happening in the Forbidden Forest. He had to check it out - it was his job.

He went slowly and noticed some more shuffling in the bushes. He readied his wand and went further into the forest. He heard growl behind him and had dodged werewolf who tried to attack him. _WEREWOLF!?!? During the day??? What the hell is going on?_ The werewolf jumped at him once more. This time he was prepared. He grabbed his neck with his left hand, threw over his left leg and pinned the werewolf to the ground. He now regretted his decision a little. Werewolves were bloody strong when they were in their human form. In the wolf form they could be as strong (or much stronger) as Harry was but only for very short time. It tired them immensely.

The wolf threw him off his back and got a little distance from Harry. Both turned now to face each other. Harry had the advantage that he still had his mind. Werewolves were directed with primal instincts and in their wolf form couldn't really think properly. Unless they were given Wolf's Bane potion. Fighting with werewolf created potential danger for Harry. Although bite didn't turn him into one of them, it created wounds that weren't healed with normal vampiric regeneration. He would have to use particularly difficult ability called 'Blood Healing'. It was strictly vampiric ability to heal wounds that were created by sunlight, fire or some other means. In this case - werewolf's bite. 

They wolf once again jumped on Harry. He ducked and kicked the werewolf as hard as he could in its stomach. The werewolf practically flew through the air and hit a tree. It cracked werewolf's skull open. Harry quickly used several petrifying and immobilising spells on it. The skull would heal in matter of minutes and he couldn't risk it escaping.

Harry tried working out a telepathic link with Bolton but the bastard was completely closed to it. Harry concentrated as hard as he could and sent a message to him with as much power as he could muster as a vampire and additionally amplified with magic.

__

"BOLTON!"

"What do you want?" Came the reply and telepathic link was set up.

__

"Come here. I've got something you simply **have** to see." Harry now sent information concerning his whereabouts.

Twenty minutes later came a pissed off Andrew Bolton.

  
"What the hell did you want?"

"This." Harry pointed at the immobilised werewolf.

"What the hell?" Bolton's eyes grew as wide as saucers and his mouth was hanging open. 

"Well…" Harry started. "… In my opinion it's a werewolf. Especially since it was able to throw me off its back. A feat like that is quite rare among the world. And a mere wolf wouldn't be able to do it. It's either a wolf that has ten tons of something in his veins or it's a werewolf. If you want I can check for sure by drinking its blood. I know how does blood of werewolf taste."

"Yeah, sure, check it." Harry shrugged and kneeled by the werewolf. He retraced his fangs to long one and bit into its neck. 

If you could compare taste of blood to taste of food, than human blood was something very sweet, almost like a chocolate. But werewolf's blood was something along the lines of 'hot and spicy'. And Harry could feel it very clearly. But there was also something, like a potion or poison cursing through the veins of werewolf. He stood up and retraced his fangs.

"Yeah, that's surely a werewolf. But it has something in its veins. A potion or a poison… whatever it is it has dragon blood, a lot of it, phoenix tears, and unicorn's hair. We'll have to ask Snape whatever that might be." Harry now thought that he would have to restrain himself a bit - for unknown reasons werewolf's blood gave him even more unstable mood-swings.

"Snape?"

"Potions professor here."

"Hmmm… I think we should take this guy over here…" He pointed at the werewolf "… and check out what happened to him after he will change back."

Harry levitated the werewolf and they went to the castle. They conjured a cage in the training room and locked up the werewolf in there. They went to the potions classroom. Harry waved goodbye to Bolton and headed to Ancient Runes classroom. He used a spell to check what time it was. He was two minutes late. He ran there as fast as he could and few seconds later he was standing at the entrance of classroom. He went inside and apologised to Professor Stepelli [A/N: I have a felling that I'm not the first one to use this name for Ancient Runes teacher] for being late. She gave him a text to translate. They were obviously revising something.

Professor Stepelli was about sixty-five years old. However she looked like a thirty-five year old. How did this happen, Harry had no idea. She had blonde hair and grey eyes. There was something about her, a strange sense of familiarity as Harry looked at her. But he didn't know where it came from.

Harry glanced at the parchment she gave him. It was a really ancient language. It probably came from somewhere around 5000-6000 BC He wasn't expected to translate it correctly (as that was deemed almost impossible with traditional means) but rather interpret the text, aiding himself with known languages from this point of time.

Fortunately for him, older vampires understood instinctively the languages. He didn't have any idea about workings of it. It just worked. He looked at the runes and started reading them. Very soon he heard the words in English. And the parchment seemed very interesting

After the Great Tragedy he came to us.

He was eternal, immortal.

His name was Cain.

And he gave chosen ones gift of immortality.

But they were not ready. 

For they have died.

He gave us the gift once again.

And we became immortal.

But we were different.

We were dead and walking, so was he, dead and walking.

But we were burned by life-giving sun.

He was a sun-walker.

Harry immediately knew what it was. It was one of the few known fragments of so called 'Chronicle of Darkness'. This book contained information about beginnings of the vampires and their history. Unfortunately today's magical historians couldn't relate any events to the 'Great Tragedy'. Truth to be told the book was more mystery than origins of the vampires. The only information from this book was that name of the first vampire was Cain and even this was not sure simply because there were many other sources which told other name of the first vampire. But the name was widely accepted as the 'real' one.

Harry wrote a translation on piece of parchment and gave it to the professor. Her eyes went wide and she told him to wait after the lesson. Well, he was clearly impressing the teachers. Hermione was the first to finish after him although it took her much longer (no surprise here). After the lesson ended he waited yet again in the classroom. Fortunately he didn't have any lessons later. He could talk with Bolton about the weird case of werewolf.

"Well, Mr.Clark I see that either you are very special or you took great amount of time in learning Ancient Runes."

"I'm a vampire."

"I know about that. But how does that relate to this translation?"

"We instinctively understand every language."

"Ah, so it might be useful. Would you like to work on some other translations?"

"I will think about it."

"Very well. Goodbye."

Harry went out of the classroom and walked with normal, human speed to the room he expected Bolton to be. As far as Harry knew Bolton couldn't have had time to talk with Snape about this. Both had their classes. He went to the training room and waited there at the same time looking at the strange werewolf. In the mid-time Harry drank blood.

Finally, after about three hours Bolton came into the room.

"Come on, we have to go to Snape." He announced at the entrance.

"Sure."

They went to the dungeons and caught Snape just as he was walking out of the classroom.

"I have something to discuss Severus." Bolton said calmly while Snape glared at him.

"We have to know some things about certain potion." He continued. Snape grumbled and went inside of the classroom. Harry found a chair and sat on it, Bolton did the same. Snape glared at them.

"I don't have all day to waste."

"Okay…" Started Harry "… today I was on the grounds. I saw something moving in the Forbidden Forest and went to inspect it. As it later turned on it was a werewolf. I don't know how since it was broad daylight and full moon will be in about two weeks but the fact is that it was a werewolf who wanted to take me as a snack. After a fight I managed to immobilise him. I called Bolton to inspect it and as I later drank its blood in order to make sure it was a werewolf. Indeed it was one. But there was something in its blood. Some kind of poison or potion. I could taste few ingredients. There's quite a lot of Dragon blood, phoenix's tears and powdered unicorn hair. And now we come to you since you're a potions master. What could it be?"

Snape looked at them and sat down. He took a piece of parchment and started writing on it. "What are you doing?" Asked Harry.

"The three ingredients you mentioned act explosively with each other. To neutralise the explosiveness you must add additional ingredients. Those are the ingredients, which neutralise the effect. Look at the list and tell me whether you could feel something from this list?"

Harry took a look and read. There were possibilities. Aside from these three there were no really distinguishable tastes. But there were few things that surely wasn't there.

"Everything could be there. But I'm sure that there was no powdered Basilisk's eye. It has a specific taste. There couldn't be any of powdered Dragon's scales there also. No blood of vampire, that's certain."

"So this had to be The Beast potion."

"What?"

"The Beast Potion. It draws out the most primal urges, instincts and feelings from the person. Here it was a werewolf. For example if you, Clark would drink it you would turn for some time into psychopath who would suck out blood of everyone you could see. You wouldn't be able to stop yourself. If you would give it to human; the person would turn into ruthless killer, rapist, and so on and so forth. The potion was never thoroughly tested since the ingredients are very expensive and grow only during certain very short periods of time. But I'm quite sure that once a werewolf would drink it would change him into his werewolf form for about a month."

"Holy shit."

"Hmm, the potion is dangerous and the only problem that I find now is that you wouldn't find some ingredients to it now. They don't grow in any part of the world. And they won't last for that long. So the only option is that…"

"… Someone managed to create them artificially." Finished Bolton. Snape nodded and said.

"I must inform Headmaster about this."

"It would be wise to do so."

"There is one more thing about this potion that you should know."

"What is it?" Snapped Bolton.

"This potion, when added for example to drink automatically changes its looks, taste and so on so that it completely resembles the drink. Its perfect to add it to, for example, butterbeer."

This time it was Bolton who said "Holy shit."

"Yeah, you'll have to carry around a flask." Harry smiled. He didn't drink anything besides conjured blood. He was safe from this. 

"There is another thing. The potion might start working after some time or trigger after consuming some kind of food, using a spell, by particular action or thought. It can be triggered up to twenty-four hours after consuming the potion. Another thing is that the potion practically doesn't leave any marks. Everything simply disappears from body ten minutes after rage stops. It's practically a perfect weapon."

"We've got to inform someone in the Ministry, Bolton." Harry said solemnly. The potion seemed to be perfect for someone like Voldemort. You simply gave person something to drink, you added some of this potion which automatically disguised itself and could be triggered practically by anything. And now, somehow Voldemort learned how to create ingredients artificially or he learned how to preserve them for more. Also Voldemort could frame practically everyone using this. They probably wouldn't be even questioned using some truth serum - as Harry learned they weren't used too often (ingredients even to simplest truth potions were usually rare, and to the strongest ones they were considered impossible to get).

"Inform me when this guy will turn back." Bolton nodded. 

As it later turned out few days passed until the guy changed back into human. There were wards placed around him simply because this guy presented feats incredible even for werewolves in their wolf form. The cage he was in had bars that were one-inch thick and made from steel. But once, in fit of rage the werewolf twisted them like they were made of water. It took few mages to subdue the beast later. But professor Snape later explained that people on whom The Beast potion was tested tended to show extreme psychical and magical abilities for some time.

On Sunday morning Bolton send Harry a telepathic message simply saying 'The werewolf woke up'.

* * *

A/N: Well that's it. I hope that the chapter was a good one, regardless whether it was or not click the little button in the lower left corner of the screen when it's set as 'Submit review' and then 'Go' :) By the way - Remus Lupin, contrary to the popular belief **isn't** the only werewolf in the wizarding world... Till the next chapter! 

What's next on the show? Who is the werewolf?; A little vision; Ron and Hermione talk about both Harrys; Harry starts writing the letter; and as a bonus (if I will feel very warm and tingly from the number of reviews :) Harry's embrace!


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